Updating Table Occurrences

Hi ... I have made several changes to a table for which a TO exists. I want to update the TO to reflect those changes. Is there a way to to do this with out blowing up scripts that reference fields in the TO that needs to be updated. I am currently on Filemaker Version 12 ...thanks

will be automatically accessible from the context of an TO as they are just an "alias" that references the base table. If you remove a field and it's referenced in a script step, you'll get a warning to that effect (most of the time).

Even changing the name of a field or table occurrence is not a problem normally. FileMaker actually references tables, TOs and fields by interal IDs, not by their names so a change to a name doesn't break the connection like it does in other systems.

But there are exceptions: If you have any of the following:

The Script Step:

Set Field By Name

The functions:

ExecuteSQL

GetField

You may have put a field and/or a table occurrence name inside a quoted string of text to use with one of these. That quoted text doesn't have any link to those IDs and thus they can break due to a name change. And you won't get a warning if you delete a field or TO if it's only reference is as a "quoted name".

A data base design report or one of the value added tools that use the data base design report can be used to search out and check for such references. (and it is wise to use the above in ways that do not enclose such names in quotes in the first place and this is usually possible to do.)

Thank you for your reply … Let me be a bit clearer on what I am seeing … If I add a field “NewField” to a table that has an existing TO and then want to reference “NewField” from that TO (for example , specify a target for a Set Field command), “NewField” is not listed as one of the fields that I can select from that TO … thanks …

Then you probably did not add the field to the right table... a TO is a table alias and as philmodjunk indicated, any and all fields from the underlying table are automatically reflected in any TO context that uses that base table.